Tips for attorneys: how to deal with awful opposing counsel

I’ve been a lawyer for about three years. The other lawyer has been mean to me since day one. Today we are arguing in court. I win the motion. The judge signs the order. There are no copy machines in the courtroom. We need to take the order down to the clerk’s office, copy and then file it.

The lawyer is holding the order. Once we are out of the judge’s earshot, he says something derogatory. I trail him to the copy machine. He puts the order on it. Drops in some change. Makes his copy. I am waiting for him to get out of the way so I can put my change in. He won’t move. I reach over to drop the change in. He snarls at me not to touch the machine. Tells me to give him the change and he will do it. Says he doesn’t trust me. Am so stunned that I hand over the change. Careful to make sure I don’t touch his fingers.

Welcome to the world of nasty lawyers. They are not the norm. Thank heavens. But they most certainly do exist.

Two decades have passed since the Mr. You-Can’t-Be-Trusted-To-Make-A-Copy episode. Here are some of the strategies that have helped me to deal with awful opposing counsel:

Severe all emotionality with the lawyer. You are the professor watching this interesting/silly specimen flail about in its petri dish.

The louder they yell, the calmer you grow.

Don’t trust anything they say – document everything.

Be gracious, sweet, kind, even solicitous in your writings. Instead of saying: Dear Bad Attorney you are a mean jerk. Say – Dear George – thank you so much for your most recent letter. I greatly enjoyed reading it. There are a few areas where you were a little mistaken in your beliefs. Here, let me spell them out for you. I know that sometimes it is hard for you to keep these details straight. I’m honored to be able to help you do your job better. If you need my assistance again in the future. Then by all means. Simply ask. I’m happy to help.

Protect your client. This is what motions for protective order are for. Dealing with rude lawyers is an occupational hazard that we need to be prepared for. But our clients are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. Fight for them!

Protect your staff. Pick on me all you want, but leave staff out of it. If the line is crossed, ice the lawyer. They will have to communicate in writing or via our direct phone line.

Keep a sense of humor.

Speaking of which, I leave you with a true story. You will wonder who the awful opposing counsel was in this one.

Super Flashback.

I am a teenager paralegal for my mom. We are in trial on a terrible “war of the roses” type divorce case. There is a break in action. The courtroom space is small. The husband’s lawyer needs to walk behind my mom’s chair to get to the door. She has a big square briefcase on the floor by her chair. He walks by and kicks her briefcase. Apparently to move it. My mom, in all of her 5’2″ glory, comes roaring up out of her chair. And socks him. Hard. He pushes her back. They are tussling in the middle of the courtroom.

The judge comes back on the bench. He hasn’t seen this but somehow has heard of it. Probably from his staff. He scolds the two boxers. The trial continues.

About Karen

Check out a recent interview by Super Lawyers about my blog. Yes, I'm a lawyer. But I'm also a human being. I have a doggie named Nala, three daughters, eat brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts for breakfast, and wear jeans as often as possible when not in court.

Favorite Quotations

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

— Nelson Mandela

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've to say, and say it hot.

— D. H. Lawrence

Why slap them on the wrist with a feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.

— Katharine Hepburn

Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

— Langston Hughes

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

— Jane Austen

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

— Edgar Allan Poe

If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!

— Margaret Thatcher

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

— Dr. Suess

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

— Abraham Lincoln

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

— Desmond Tutu

True eloquence consists in saying all that is required and only what is required.

— La Rochefoucauld

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

— Aesop

The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.

— Oprah Winfrey

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.

— Woody Allen

The soul never thinks without a picture.

— Aristotle

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

— William Shakespeare

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

— Muhammad Ali

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

— Stephen Hawking

It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand.

— Apache proverb

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

— Dalai Lama

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

— Anne Frank

Learn to laugh; it is a discipline to be mastered. Let go of the everlasting burden of always needing to sound profound.

— Richard J. Foster

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

— Albert Einstein

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.

— Helen Keller

Remember that lost time does not return.

— Thomas á Kempis

If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small. ~ Proverbs 24:10

— Proverbs 24:10

Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.

— Gertrude Stein

It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom.

— Albert Einstein

The right of trial by jury shall be preserved.

— 7th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

— Ludacris

And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

— Erica Jong

Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.

— Judge Learned Hand

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefullness, But still, like air, I'll rise.

— Maya Angelou

The moment that justice must be paid for by the victim of injustice it becomes itself injustice.

— Benjamin Tucker

He who keeps his eye on results cannot give himself wholeheartedly to his task, however simple or complex that task may be.

— Howard Thurman

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

— Mahatma Ghandi

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.

— Flannery O'Connor

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.

— Jimmy Carter

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.

— Simone Weil

It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world.

— Alexander Solzhenitsyn

It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service.

— Albert Einstein

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

— Elie Wiesel

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

— Bill Cosby

The time is always right to do what is right.

— Martin Luther King Jr.

I had rather attempt something great and fail, than to attempt nothing at all and succeed.

— Robert Schuller

It is very easy to break down something. You can take a stone and throw it through that window; that is easy. Try fixing it, and that takes longer. It takes longer to help someone who has been broken. That’s the work you’re doing.

— Desmond Tutu

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

— Annie Dillard

Mine honor is my life;
both grow in one;
Take honor from me,
and my life is done.

— William Shakespeare

To straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing – straighten yourself.

— Buddha

A thought is an idea in transit.

— Pythagoras

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

— Old Japanese proverb

No generalization is wholly true, not even this one.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Of what use is eloquence?
He who engages in fluency of words to control men
often finds himself hated by them.

— Confucius

There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.